Have we repented of sin and truly come to Christ? Repentance can go wrong. A person may repent only of one sin. As a result God may hold back from granting a sense of forgiveness. There needs to be a greater recognition of all Christ needs to do for you; how much sin he must bear away to secure your salvation when he died on Calvary's cross. Or you may only be repenting because you are embarrassed. You have got a secret sin, and it has been found out, and you’re ashamed, so you repent. But you really are only repenting to somehow assuage your embarrassment. What about the rest? Not only that secret sin, but all of you needs the Saviour. You don't need to make a complete list of everything you've ever done. That would take a lifetime. But you need to acknowledge, ‘I am altogether fallen and sinful and I need a new heart and a new life and the cleansing of my record by Almighty God.’ You need to have a little depth in your repentance. But it's not a work; it’s a grace.
There has grown up a tendency among many Bible believers to say, ‘The belief that the Bible requires, is just belief in Christ, belief that he came, that he suffered and died on Calvary. Believe in him and that he is the Saviour, and that's all you have to do. These friends say, ‘Don’t add things to the gospel; it’s simple. It's just about believing. Don’t try to add repentance to that simple condition. The idea that people should repent of their sin and experience anguish and sorrow, and be ashamed for what they have done – that is a work.’ But to say that is to strip the gospel of its heart. To define belief as fixing only on the person of Christ, and not on his soul saving work, and the need to come to him and repent for the cleansing of all your sin; that is a serious error.
Those who hold such a view have drifted from the grand old confessions of faith. They may believe the fundamental doctrines; they want to preach Christ; they want to expound the Scripture, but they don’t work on the basis of the great confessions of faith. The Bible alone is inspired; confessions of faith are not inspired; but in the 17th century there was a wonderful abundance of biblical, theological teaching and analysis. The Baptists produced a confession, but as time went by, the Presbyterians and the Independents produced a much longer one. It was called ‘The Westminster Confession’. The Westminster Confession of Faith: it was somewhat Presbyterian in its notions of church government, but all the doctrines of the faith were analysed and defined and presented with scriptural text beautifully. The Baptists therefore largely adopted it, but adapted it to their own views of the church and of baptism – the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. Then the Congregationalists and the Independents under John Owen produced a very similar one: the Savoy confession. In all three great confessions you'll find repentance is not a work, but it is defined as a grace. Faith and repentance of your sin go hand in hand.
No, they argue, repentance is not found in the Gospel of John. Charles Ryrie (famous for the Ryrie Study Bible) has written ‘It is striking that the Gospel of John, the Gospel of belief, never uses the word “repent” even once.’ Lewis Sperry Chafer adds that the fourth Gospel would be ‘incomplete and misleading if repentance must be accorded a place separate from, and independent of, believing.’ No wonder there are so many nominal Christians. How this teaching suits them! On the day of Pentecost Peter sets out the right response to the gospel with these words: ‘Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins’ (Acts 2:38). How clear that is! That is what Christ preached: ‘Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 3:2). That was how they were to enter into the kingdom. It is no way to expound the Gospel of John by making it teach something different to the other Gospels. When Peter accounts for his going into the house of uncircumcised men and eating with them, after explaining what God had done, the people recognise that God is saving the Gentiles also. How do they put it? ‘Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life’ (Acts 11:18). Repentance is an essential part of conversion. Paul summarises his ministry as, ‘Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 20:21). He actually puts repentance first. The two are inseparable.
What then does John’s Gospel teach? John the Baptist introduces Christ as, ‘The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). Does the Lord take away our sin without our repenting of it and turning from it? He is the Paschal Lamb, and his suffering and death is placed in the context of taking away sin. That's going to be the big theme in the Gospel of John, and wherever he says, ‘Believe’, the context is the taking away of sin. There is a form of belief that has never dealt with the problem of sin and Christ rejects it: ‘Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man (John 2:23-25). John’s definition of believing includes leaving darkness and coming into the light (John 3:18-20). John may not use the word repentance – in his Gospel; he certainly uses it elsewhere – but he uses exactly equivalent terms. To the impotent man healed at Bethesda the Lord says, ‘Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee’ (John 5:14). Can anyone sin no more without repenting? Likewise to the woman caught into adultery he says, ‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more’ (John 8:11). He wars the Pharisees: ‘If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins’ (John 8:24). They still lived in their sins; they had never turned back from them. The same John writes elsewhere, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’ Can we earnestly confess without repentance? In Revelation 9:20 he characterises the response of those not converted with the words: ‘And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands.’
Does this teach that baptism secures salvation? No, it means that the person who was baptised had left Judaism, and had really nailed his colours to the mast. So Mark mentions ‘is baptised’, because it shows that the believer is really sincere. He hasn't just assented to Christ, but never repented, and never truly been saved.